Russia’s state-owned natural gas export monopoly is
suspected of abusing its dominant market power to impose unfair
prices in central and eastern Europe by linking what it charges
for long-term natural gas contracts to oil prices and of
preventing gas from being traded between countries, the EU said
when it started the probe in September 2012.

“Gazprom announced that it would present draft proposals
in writing in the coming days, which the commission will
assess,” Almunia said in an e-mailed statement. He also met
Anatoly Yanovsky, Russia’s deputy oil minister.

“We are talking about continued exchange of information on
issues that the European Commission is interested in,” said
Sergei Kupriyanov, a spokesman for Moscow-based Gazprom.

Settlement Process

EU antitrust rules allow regulators to lift the threat of
fines in certain cases, excluding cartels, when companies make
commitments to end anti-competitive behavior.

The EU’s probe, which saw raids on Gazprom offices and the
premises of customers in 2011, focuses on several Baltic states,
Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria,
Almunia said in October.

Separately, Gazprom yesterday won approval from Almunia’s
department at the Brussels-based European Commission for its
plan to swap assets with Wintershall, an oil and gas unit of
BASF SE, and gain sole control of gas supply and storage joint
ventures Wingas GmbH and Wintershall Erdgas Handelshaus GmbH &
Co.

The deal wouldn’t “allow Gazprom to restrict customers’
access to gas supplies, given the presence of sufficient
alternative upstream suppliers,” the commission said in an e-mailed statement.